Arvind mahankali 2011

How would he handle that? Srinivas Mahankali is a software engineer, and his wife, Bhavani, is a physician. When I first saw Arvind Mahankali on Wednesday in the Maryland Ballroom, he was in his usual pose — shoulders hunched, glasses perched low on his nose, an expression on his face that was either studious or politely bored. More than spellers surrounded him onstage, but he had already survived the preliminaries and was waiting for the field to be whittled down to 41 semifinalists.

Since there are too many spellers to eliminate onstage, this test would help determine who advanced to the semifinals. A second test a night later would serve the same purpose in determining the finalists. For the first time in bee history, Arvind and the others also had to define 14 words. Arvind was one of just three spellers in the entire field to register a perfect score.

No surprise there. This was his fourth time at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and he was arguably the most famous speller never to have won a title. He appeared on TV with Anderson Cooper , he was featured in print, and his profile, by spelling standards, was remarkably high.

He finished third in and , eliminated both times on German-derived words.

As an eighth-grader this year, he was down to his last shot. Srinivas knew his son had talent as a speller as early as fourth grade. Instead, he was told about the South Asian Spelling Bee. Arvind entered in and finished third in the New York City region.